


do you hear my heart saying hi?

by cakesnake



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alana centric, Coming Out, Connor-Alana friendship, F/F, Fluff, GAY/LESBIAN SOLIDARITY, Galaxy Gals, LGBTQ Themes, Libraries, M/M, Making Out, Minor Angst, Passing Out, Romance, The Amazing Asshole Jared Kleinman, angst nonetheless, background treebros, being outed, but not a GHD AU, influenced by GHD the Musical, just lesbian bullshit, lets flesh out Jared shall we?, mostly fluffy, okay but girls are just so pretty and Alana understands this, they don’t use it properly that’s for sure, vague gay panic, what even is study hall, zolana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 15:46:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12368955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakesnake/pseuds/cakesnake
Summary: So, the little ‘Zoe’s in the margin of her notebook show up more often, and she must be slipping, missing important things as she doodles ‘Mrs Alana Murphy’ in the back page of her notebook, when she finally fucking thinks about it.





	do you hear my heart saying hi?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey, there’s a lack of Alana fics in here, and I have made it my mission to start fixing that. So here’s some Alana stuff. 
> 
> Also, a few warnings this does have mentions of violent homophobia and vague mentions of a suicide attempt. But, it is fairly vague. 
> 
> Title from ‘Ring of Keys’ from Fun Home, which I thought was fitting. 
> 
> Enjoy guys!

Alana Beck is seven when she first realises just how gross boys are. She’s walking with her mom, holding her hand tight, like she’d been told so that she doesn’t get lost, and a boy in front of them, a teenager, spits on the pavement. Right on the pavement. And continues walking. And Alana has to walk right over it, nearly right through it. How disgusting.

She tells her mom then and there that she would never, not ever marry a boy, especially if he spits on the ground. Her mom laughs.

“Don’t you think you’re a bit too young to be deciding these kinds of things now?”

Alana shakes her head vigorously. She’s not too young. Boys are gross. That’s all there is to it.

*******

There starts to be a little bit more than ‘boys are gross’ to it by the time she reaches third grade. Boys continue to be gross, but _girls_ … well, they’re so smart, and pretty, and kind.

Alana’s best friend, Sabrina, brings her bracelets back from a vacation, and Alana can’t help but hug her as hard as humanly possible, and thinks that maybe marrying your best friend is a suitable substitute for marrying a boy.

She tells her mother just that, and she laughs.

“Oh, ‘Lana, you say the funniest things.”

Alana is going to marry her best friend one day. They would wear their prettiest dresses, and hold pretty flowers that made the whole place smell lovely, and they would smile so wide, because they’d get to be best friends forever.

*******

She’s in fifth grade when they have to cut her hair short because a boy in their class, one Brian Harris, stuck gum in her hair. Her mom cries, she cries, and all of her curls are lying on the floor, and she can hear the _snip snip_ of the scissors behind her ears that tells her it still isn’t over.

She hates it, she hates having short hair.

Some girls look very pretty with short hair, but Alana doesn’t think she’s one. She thinks she will get made fun of for it. She thinks kids will point and laugh. She doesn’t think she’ll be pretty anymore.

But she doesn’t say as much to her mom. She doesn’t want to worry her.

So she walks into school the next day, with her head held up higher than she thought possible, not weighed down by all of her hair. She ignores the mean laughing, and the kids who ask her why she has a boys haircut, but she can’t ignore Brian Harris’ comment, followed by his friends hysterical laughter.

“Loving the dyke cut, Alana.”

She doesn’t know what that means, but his tone and his friends horrible laughter tells her all she needs to know. It is bad. It’s not something she should be. She keeps her head low as she passes.

She wears hats for the rest of the year.

*******

She’s in eighth grade when she gets a inkling that maybe she might not be straight.

There’s a girl, all smiles, and sunshine, and long hair, and sparkling eyes, and tinkling laughs, and Alana can’t help but watch the way she moves, the graceful way she navigates the hallway, the way she casually flips her hair over her shoulder, the way she draws her friends in for hugs that squish their cheeks together, and she feels this pull in her soul that makes her wish she was squished up in that hug.

But, a part of her brain protests, she knows how kids like that get treated here. Pushed down in the hallways, laughed at, gossiped about. They don’t get anywhere, and they lose their friends. Connor Murphy came out earlier that year, and he was abandoned by what few friends he had.

He looks sad now. Much lonelier. Part of her wants to approach him, befriend him. If she is- well, then they’re sort of kindred spirits aren’t they?

But befriending Connor would have worse repercussions than coming out.

So she sets that impending revelation to the side.

*******

She’s a freshman when she kisses someone for the first time.

Or rather, they kiss her.

It has to be a dare, and she certainly wasn’t there when this boy conceived of this idea, but she’s standing in the hallway, and a senior comes up to her, and asks about extra curriculars, and he’s tall, and his shoulders are broad, and she thinks he must be a heartthrob amongst her classmates. And then he leans forward, and his mouth is on hers, and his tongue is in her mouth, and she pushes him away, shocked and confused.

He laughs. She backs away.

She waits until she gets to the girls bathroom to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand and dissolve into tears.

*******

She’s a sophomore, and she’s watching it on tv. They’re covering it on tv. She’s watching people run, madly racing toward the cameras, and she’s been holding her breath without realising it. And it’s announced.

The bill has been passed into law. Same sex marriage is legal in all 50 states in the USA.

She lets out a heaving breath, and with it come tears she doesn’t realise were building in her eyes.

It’s happened. It’s real, and she’s smiling so hard, and she knows why.

She _knows_ it. She just hasn’t admitted it to herself. She isn’t ready to yet.

*******

Zoe Murphy is everything Alana wishes she was. Confident and laid back. She seems so calm all of the time, and it makes Alana feel stressed for her, over all of her own stress from AP classes and all the clubs she runs now.

Sometimes she wishes she could sit down with Zoe and ask her how she manages to be so calm with her brother being the person he is, and with such prestigious family she has to live up to. Ask her so that maybe she can do that.

But she has always, and will always need to work twice as hard to get that same recognition as her classmates, and she does that, she goes above and beyond, she barely sleeps, forgets to eat, all just to keep her image spotless.

She wishes she could just fall asleep in class without worrying about what she might be missing, the way that Zoe is now.

There’s that, and there’s something so captivating about the way that her head is tilted slightly to the side, and her mouth is a little open, and her face looks so sweet and young while she’s asleep.

She tries not to think about that. She’s supposed to be taking notes.

But it’s won’t be too bad if she takes a little time to doodle Zoe’s name in the margin of her notebook.

*******

So, the little ‘ _Zoe_ ’s in the margin of her notebook show up more often, and she must be slipping, missing important things as she doodles ‘ _Mrs Alana Murphy_ ’ in the back page of her notebook, when she finally fucking thinks about it.

Finally let’s that thought back in.

Is she gay?

Her infatuation with Zoe says that may be the case. The fact that she’s writing their names with little love hearts, and has a good idea of the dress she might wear to their wedding, and exactly how she would behave when she meets Zoe’s parents for the first time, may be a little telling.

The fact that she never wants to be with someone who isn’t Zoe might just be a symptom of her being a teenager with bad judgement.

But there is one thing for certain.

She likes girls. She wants to kiss girls. She wants to hold hands, and get dogs, and buy a house, and have kids, and live happily ever after with a girl.

She wants lazy Sunday afternoons in bed with her wife, lying in the fading sunlight, tracing patterns into the bare skin of her shoulder, and feeling safe and secure in her arms.

She wants that, yearns for it, despite being barely eighteen, and wanting to get so much more done before she settles down with anyone.

Nevertheless.

She likes girls.

She’s gay.

She’s a lesbian.

And it shouldn’t be news to her, but it is.

She misses taking notes for the rest of that class.

*******

So, maybe Alana has no idea how to deal with her crush, and no idea how to deal with the realisation that she is in fact gay. But she will deal with it, the way she deals with everything else, with dignity and grace, quickly and efficiently.

The fun bit is telling her mom, she has to come out to her, she owes it to her, she thinks. Her mom is making dinner, facing the stove top when she says it.

She’s braced for hell fire, for being yelled at, told that it’s a phase, she’ll get over it, but her mom doesn’t even turn around.

“Okay,” Alana gapes. “Is that it?”

“Well, yes, but aren’t you going to-“

“What? Yell? Scream? ‘Lana, baby, you’re my world, I’m not going to throw you out for being you. If you want me to yell, I can, but I don’t think either of us wants to, and I don’t know what I would say.”

And he walks to her on, and they hug for a long time, and Alana sobs, feeling so lucky to have her mother being as understanding as she is.

Realising she’s gay was a shock, and coming out is hard, and after her mom she decides she’s not going to do it publicly. She can wait until college to be out. This school and it’s students have proven themselves untrustworthy if the other students in her position are anything to go by.

And somehow, this is how she ends up sitting next to Connor Murphy in the library during study hall. He gives her a glare, but there is confusion in his eyes, like he doesn’t understand why she’d sit there in the first place.

Neither does she.

He’s reading a book, _Northern Lights_ by Phillip Pullman, doesn’t seem to have any homework in front of him, and his feet are up on the desk like she knows so many students have been told off for before him. She wonders whether he actually cares about pleasing anyone anymore.

She wonders if she would be like him if she had done as he had. If she hadn’t put it off. If she had announced it as soon as he had.

She wonders if she’d care about anything anymore.

“Why did you do it?” She asks quietly, before she can think better of it. He looks up from his book, looking even more confused than before, and slightly irritated now.

“Do what? Because if this is about the fire in the boys bathroom upstairs, I had nothing to do with it, and also hadn’t heard of a fire,” his voice is flat with apathy and sarcasm, but she hears some hint of humour behind the statement.

She breathes and steels herself for a probable bad reaction when she asks the next question.

“In eighth grade, why did you come out? Not that it’s a bad thing, not at all, I’m just confused-“

“I’ll spare you the pain of rambling for another five minutes, and tell you to kindly _fuck off_. That’s none of your business. If that’s the only reason you came over here, I suggest you leave,” there’s a steely look in his eyes that suggests a dangerous tone, and he doesn’t seem to be joking in any way.

And he’s not wrong. It’s none of her business. So she nods at him. “Sorry. Have a good day.”

She can almost hear his eyes roll from where she’s standing.

*******

She can’t give up the curiosity, it settles in her stomach, and eats at her insides, begging to know about it. There’s a part of her that wants to come out to him, so that he’ll tell her why he did it, but two other parts of her, one that thinks he’ll go and tell everyone about her, and another that thinks that maybe it would be really embarrassing to come out to her crush’s (true love’s) brother.

So she settles for watching him sometimes, trying to figure him out.

He’s an interesting kid.

He has a new book every week. He wears all black and great every day, but sometimes she catches a bright coloured sock. She learns from her observation that he has a collection of brightly coloured and patterned socks.

And she learns that he doesn’t stop looking at Evan Hansen, the kid with the broken arm. He hasn’t managed to get anyone to sign it, and ever since she didn’t sign it the first time he asked her, she can’t bring herself to go and sign it for him.

But Connor gets this far-away look in his eye when he looks at Evan, like he wishes he could walk over to him, like he wishes he knew something Evan did.

So Alana starts looking at Evan as well.

He smiles a hell of a lot more than Connor does. But it’s always a slightly cringing smile, always like he’s humouring someone, like he’s laughing at a joke at his own expense.

And he looks at Zoe like she thinks she must look at Zoe. Like Connor looks at him.

It’s sad, she thinks. For Connor. For her.

Because there no way Zoe would want Alana over Evan. He’s a sweetheart. She drops her books in the hallway, on his feet, no less, and he apologises.

That same day, Connor glares at her all day.

Winter creeps up on her, so do all of her college applications.

She submits to all of her choice colleges, everything to her standard, making her out to be as good a student as she knows she is. They go on Christmas break, and she spends time with her mom, and her aunt and uncle, and her baby cousin, and she smiles sometimes.

She goes back to school, everyone swaddled in puffy coats, and Zoe and Connor roll in in the same car, and between the parking lot and the school Zoe’s nose turns a cute red, and her smile is blinding as she skips through the thin layer of snow lying over the ground, and Connor trudges behind her, smiling a little at the way his sister skips in front of him.

Evan comes back without a cast on his arm, wrapped up in scarves, and a hat that makes him look like a Who from Whoville.

Connor gazes at him, and she wants to push him towards Evan. She can’t bring herself to do it.

A change happens, somewhere in January.

Evan stops looking at Zoe. Starts looking at Connor.

She doesn’t know what changed. But if Connor isn’t looking at Evan, Evan is looking at Connor. She feels like she’s stuck as a secondary character in a teen movie. So she starts putting herself out there,making herself a primary character in this teen movie.

She focuses on Zoe. She approaches her in the library one day, looking for book for her English assignment. They agree to go for coffee sometime, to talk, maybe about an assignment, maybe about how exciting it is to be finishing school, she’s not sure, because they were talking about both those things before Zoe invited her for coffee, and to ‘talk more about this’.

She feels like her soul will leap from her body in pure happiness.

She sits next to Connor in Study Hall, unable to wipe the grin from her face.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, not looking up from his book.

She can’t tell him.

“You look like my sister, she just fucking came up to me in the hall to tease me about a date she set up for this week. Honestly…”

And the rest of what he says floats in one ear and out the other.

Because Zoe considers this a date.

Zoe considers her date-able.

Zoe wants to date her.

She will never be happier than in this moment.

This moment, she falls out of her chair, flat on her ass, in front of her crush’s, her _date’s_ , brother.

And he laughs. Loud and genuine, full of cheer and real happiness. His eyes are closed, his head tilted back, his mouth wide open in a smile she hasn’t seen on him in the entire time she’s known him, and his nose crinkles in pure joy, and she knows, somewhere in this school, Evan Hansen’s Spidey-Senses are tingling in the knowledge that Connor Murphy’s laugh is like that.

She forgets for a moment that he’s laughing at her.

She wonders if Zoe’s laugh is like that.

*******

Zoe orders her a hot chocolate. She pays for extra marshmallows. She gets a little bit of milk froth on her top lip, and Alana reaches out and brushes it off, and she feels a pull deep inside, and god she really wants to kiss Zoe Murphy, she really really does.

And Zoe ducks her head, and blushes, and wipes her mouth on her sleeve, and thanks her, and Alana says no problem, because there wasn’t a problem, there was the exact opposite of a problem, there was an opportunity and she blew it. And that is a problem.

They talk about school.

Alana talks about college applications, and clubs, and Zoe talks about band, and her family.

“My dad's always working, and my mom is trying a billion things to distract herself from the fact that she doesn’t do anything, and all my brother does is double as a stoner and a disappointment to my parents, and he takes that out on me. That’s the whole family dynamic, right there. What about you?”

Alana tells her about her single mother.

“Where’s your dad?”

“He died. On tour. Before I was born. It was just mom and me, and sometimes Grandma, but she died over the summer, so not anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t kill them, you didn't even know them.”

Zoe nods at that.

“Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have them.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not right in thinking it could be better.” Alana replies.

Zoe smiles.

*******

It's not just Evan and Connor who've changed. The clouds part for a second, and Alana can see Jared Kleinman more clearly than she has since elementary school.

It's like winter has seared at something inside him. He's seen Evan's glances, Evan's gazes, Evan's stares, traced them to their source, and done the math.

Jared Kleinman has taken a step back and looked. Jared Kleinman has backed off.

Jared Kleinman looks lonely.

Alana takes a deep breath. What had she learned from waiting? Waiting got her nowhere.

Alana walks up to him and chatters about nothing to him as they walk to the only class they share. He frowns at her, confusedly, obviously wondering what he's done to have drawn her attention, and that just makes her more determined.

She continues on that way. She won't let him be alone, or get left behind.

Alana coaxes Jared into conversations about college and summer camps and homework between dates with Zoe and study hall with Connor and trying not to wince every time the mailbox is empty.

Jared Kleinman adjusts to winter slower than the rest of them did, but he adjusts nonetheless.

*******

She and Jared slide into an easy friendship, sitting together at lunch, which means that Evan sits with them. And then Zoe starts sitting with them, occasionally bringing along a friend.

They talk. They laugh.

Alana learns that Zoe’s laugh is even more beautifully out of control than her brother’s.

Who Evan looks at all through lunch.

Sometimes Jared give him shit about it, and she will nudge him, and he’ll shut up. Because she can see that Evan is sometimes really hurt by the things that Jared says. Zoe grins when Evan finally expresses his crush in late February, and says something about how fun it will be to crash Connor’s prom with him there.

Alana ignores (fails to ignore) Zoe’s Freudian Slip there, where she expressed that she wants to go to Prom with Alana, and focuses on Evan. (Mostly.)

Evan blushes and mutters something about how he isn’t going to do anything about it, it’s just a crush guys, I’ll get over it, please don’t-

She never does hear what he’s going to protest them doing, because by that point, Zoe has called Connor over, and he’s rolled his eyes, and he’s walking over, and Evan is as red as a beetroot, and Jared is laughing so hard he looks like he’s going to fall off his chair.

He doesn’t before she pushes him off it.

Connor’s face looks stormy, like he’s expecting the worst. She smiles at him.

That does nothing to calm the look in his face that says that he’s expecting to be attacked.

Evan stumbles over a few words, and Connor suddenly looks entranced, like no one else exists, and Alana smiles wider.

Connor interrupts him, and she isn’t quite sure what they’re really talking about, because Evan had started with the weather, and somehow they are onto the subject of The Great Gatsby, which Connor is just ranting about, beating up on F Scott Fitzgerald, singing the praises of the Baz Luhrmann adaptation, she can’t figure out if he likes or dislikes the book, but Evan is just sitting there, nodding and interjecting, adding his observations, and all of a sudden Evan is grabbing his bag and ditching the group in order to hand out with Connor.

It’s a whirlwind of action, and finally Jared, who had got off the floor a while ago is grinning at her and Zoe.

“They’re infatuated.” Alana says.

Everyone nods.

*******

She sits next to Connor in Study Hall. Instead of a book in his hand, he holds an envelope.

“I wanted to open this with you.”

“You hardly know me.”

“You’ll care more than my parents.”

It’s a gut punch of a statement, but from what Zoe says, she knows it’s true. So she nods, and he starts ripping the envelope open.

Sh knows by the size of the thing that it will be an acceptance, and she’s ready to celebrate with him. Because she cares. She really does.

He pulls the paper out, and reads for a moment, and then whoops.

There is a wide smile on his face, and she grins in answer to it.

The teacher shushes him and glares but he sticks the letter up in the air.

“I got in!” He exclaims.

They read over the letter together in hushed voices. And he looks up, eyes still bright, but the happy look on his face hushed. “You asked me, a while ago, why I came out. That was when-“

“It was when I first realised I was gay. I’m really sorry, it was just incomprehensible to me that anyone would choose to come out in this school-“

“Yeah. You’d have to be an idiot…” Connor seems bitter, and Alana thinks she’s offended him.

“God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“No. I knew even then. You’d have to be an idiot, in our school, in our town-“ Alana jumps to ask him why he did it then, “Let me stop you there, I didn’t do it on purpose. Or, more to the point, I didn’t do it.”

She cocks her head and then realises, and gasps. “Someone outed you?”

He nods and looks down. “Brian Harris decided eighth grade was a good time to experiment. He cornered me behind the gym, kissed me, said he didn’t think I would mind it, but you know-“ He breaks off, and considers. “Somewhere in the outrage that followed it, I admitted I was gay, and it just escalated from there.”

He pauses there, and Alana knows what’s coming is worse, much worse, and her hand clenches on the desk in preparation.

“Three weeks after he outed me, I tried-“ He bites his lips. “It was the first time. My dad didn’t take it seriously. Thought I was being dramatic. The day I came back from recovery, they beat me up, kicked me so hard in the stomach I couldn’t do anything but stumble anywhere.”

Alana remembers that, remembers her horror as they pushed him down, Brian Harris, Kevin Smith, Chris Green, a couple of others, punched him, took turns kicking him, in the stomach, shoulder, head, anywhere. They got suspended, but only because of the Murphy’s insistence, they snickered as they were escorted out of school.

“I’m sorry. That’s so shitty.”

“Yeah.”

She places her hand on his arm, and he looks up into he eyes, and she sees a sparkle of hope in his eyes.

“It can only get better from here, right?” He holds the letter up, and smiles, kinda bittersweet.

Next time, she brings her third unopened acceptance to open with him.

*******

She’s lying in bed with Zoe, over the covers, fully dressed, but her hands is playing at the hem of Zoe’s shirt, and Zoe is moving under her, her lips, her back arching, head cocking, her hands on Alana’s hips, and _god_ , Alana can’t comprehend this. This isn’t her, can’t be her, she doesn’t deserve all of this, but here she is, god, she really is here, with Zoe, who is moving her hands up, up her shirt, her smooth skin, up-

And she doesn’t want to freak out, but she’s freaking out, because, _look where she is!_

She breaks away, and breathes hard, and rucks Zoe’s shirt up, and they’re both much too excited for this. She moves her hands to get rid of her own shirt, and Zoe grins.

She’s grinning, but her lungs don’t feel like they can actually fill with air, and she’s hyperventilating, and Zoe looks concerned, which she should, because honestly, Alana feels this close to fainting.

Which she proceeds to do.

She comes to in just seconds, but Zoe’s leaning over her now, brows furrowed, and hand on her shoulder, her bare shoulder, and she feels dizzy all over again.

“You okay?”

She laughs. She actually passed out, because she made out with a girl. “I’m sorry, I just got so excited, I guess I hyperventilated.”

Zoe smiles.

“As dangerous as that is, it’s kinda cute. I’ll bring a tank of oxygen next time.”

And Alana almost swoons again at the thought of a next time.

*******

So, she’s going to ask Zoe to prom. She’s going to do it. She doesn’t care about what her classmates think, she’s leaving this hellhole soon, and they won’t affect her from her on in.

“I’m going to ask your sister to prom.” She says, sitting next to Connor.

He looks at her, taken aback, like she had told him that she was going to do something like punch his sister, or dump mayonnaise on her. Like she has said something offensive.

“What?”

“You know she still has a year here to go. With these awful people.”

And it strikes her.

Zoe still has to be here. Has to deal with these people, the people she has been so scared of.

She can’t do this to Zoe.

It’s like ice water has been dumped over her head. She can’t do that to Zoe.

“Shit.”

She won’t do that to Zoe.

*******

“When we go to prom.” Zoe says, and Alana just smiles tightly.

*******

I want to match you, what colour is your dress?” She asks.

Alana chokes. “I’m, ah, getting a suit actually.”

Zoe smiles. “Awesome. Coloured tie, or can I go crazy with colours?”

“I haven’t got a tie yet.”

“Awesome. I’m thinking sunshine yellow.”

*******

“Why does my sister think she’s going to prom with you?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t asked her, I didn’t, I wasn’t going to. I- after what you said, I couldn’t.”

“So-“

“So she’s assumed, and I haven’t exactly shot her down.”

Connor groans.

“Would it really be that bad? You and Evan are going together.”

“We’re leaving this all next year, besides, we’ve already adjusted to the teasing. Zoe’s at the top of the high school food chain. That would crush her.”

Alana doesn’t know why protecting Zoe crushes her a little bit.

*******

“Zo?”

“Yeah.”

“You keep talking about prom.”

“Yeah?”

“I… haven’t asked you.”

“I figured it was mutual.”

Alana pauses for a moment, and Zoe’s face falls.

“You don’t want to go with me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant, of course I want- but it’s not about me, it’s about you! Are you sure you want this?”

Zoe looks affronted. “Of course I do-“

“Because you know what they did you your brother, how much they hurt him, and I get to leave after this year, but you have to stay here, with them, with the people who kicked him until he couldn’t breathe, just because he’s gay.”

“So, what, this is you being chivalrous?”

“This is me protecting you,I don’t want you hurt, I don’t want that.”

“I can take care of myself!”

“I don’t want you to have to!”

“Why? Why are you so protective of me all of a sudden?”

“Because I really don’t want you to be hurt, because I want you to be happy, because I love you, and I want you safe, even if I’m not with you, and-“

And oh god, she said the L word.

Both of them gasp, and Alana blanches, and Zoe starts forward and pulls her into a kiss.

“What would make me happy is if we had that night together. I’ll make myself safe, I’ll worry about me.”

‘But-“

“And I love you too.”

And whatever Alana was going to say is lost, because all the air has been knocked from her lungs, and she holds on to Zoe tight to stop from fainting now.

*******

They arrive at from together, smiling from ear to ear, Alana in a well fitted suit, Zoe in a soft blue, floaty dress, looking the picture of happiness.

It’s not quites the marriage she thought of in third grade, but Alana has learned that she likes suits far more than dresses, Zoe looks girly enough for the both of them. The flower on her lapel, and the corsage she bought for Zoe are wonderful substitutes for the bouquets she imagined, and really it’s too early for marriage for either of them.

But it does feel like an eternal bond, the smiles they wear, the fun they have, zoe is her best friend, the best one she will ever have, who will know all of her secrets, tell Alana all of hers, who comforts her when she cries, and makes her pass out in pure excitement.

She can’t wait to share so much more with Zoe. She is so happy in the moment they spin out to the dance floor, seeing Zoe’s grin.

That’s all Alana can ask for, for now. 


End file.
